


Boxing Day

by pronker



Category: Penguins of Madagascar
Genre: M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 20:03:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5553521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pronker/pseuds/pronker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How to celebrate Boxing Day in the United States.  Slash.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boxing Day

"All right, Private, you say it's Boxing Day, what comes next?" Skipper modified his usual combat-ready stance to a Marquess of Queensberry opening bout pose per the official rules of American pugilism. The commander shifted his weight from foot to foot as he waved his right flipper two inches from his subordinate's face and cocked back his left for an effective one-two punch. He bobbed and weaved.

Private sighed. "No, no, Skippa! Boxing Day is when servants get _boxes_ of presents from their employers for good service in the past year." He drank in Skipper's powerful aura of agility and readiness for, well, anything. It didn't help his nerves.

"So it's _not_ some made-up Lunacorn fantasy of yours. I knew that. All right, I think there's some boxed 1898 aged herring left around here - wait, what?" Skipper rocked back, flippers akimbo. "You think you're a _servant_?"

"Well ... now and then, yeah ... I mean, aren't we _all_ servants to the team, in a way ... just hopin' for a little somethin' on the holiday, is all ... wotever you have or w-want to give." A devastating thought arose. _"Haven't_ I been good?"

Now _this_ made Skipper look more sure of himself. "Good? Certainly, you've been good. You made a good elf to my Santa and helped me out at Kidsmas yesterday, you've been a sweet _heart_ for the team all damn year long, blah blah blah, and I am positive you'll be good all _next_ year. Blah. Now where is that herring?"

 _Sweet ... heart?_ Private stopped Skipper from turning away from him in a fruitless search because one midnight Rico ate up all the vintage herring in an explosion of gluttony. They all knew about it except Skipper. "But I don't want _herring_." He came close to withering under another glare.

"So what _do_ you want? And need I remind you to hurry _up_? Kowalski and Rico will be back soon from setting up the train set we gave to Eggy and all of us need to work off some holiday poundage. I'm thinking eighty laps around the pool for a start, and _yes_ , Private, I'm including myself." Skipper smoothed his spotless white front. "Some fat sneaked into the muscles while I wasn't looking."

Private scratched circles in their headquarters' floor with one foot. He looked out the porthole. He contemplated the ceiling spikes. He peered into the far corner where Kowalski's latest invention hummed. Whenever Kowalski told them what it was, Private was sure they'd all be put at risk of their lives again. _Oh, dear._ Or perhaps one of them would fall victim on a mission. Perhaps the someone would be Skipper or more likely, Private himself. Perhaps Julien would decide any moment to raid their refrigerator and would barge in like he always did. The time was now. "I w-want a kiss."

"A kiss." Skipper considered. Private was glad that Kowalski was not around to offer options. "The chocolate kind?"

Private wrung his flippers, looked down and then up. "No, Skippa."

Skipper waddled a slow, thoughtful 360 degrees around the most junior member of the team. Private felt his commander's gaze burning him as he snapped to attention, and he blushed head to foot.

"You're _sure_ you wouldn't prefer herring?" Skipper looked like he could _see_ the blush through thick waterproof feathers. Maybe he could. Only Manfredi and Johnson ever realized the full extent of Skipper's talents, or so Kowalski whispered one night after lights out, and look what happened to _them_.

"Y-Yeah. But, you know, it's tradition that the _boss_ chooses the present, so if you don't want to give it to me - "

At Skipper's next words, Private's face fell and his heart sank like a drowning leopard seal that had forgotten how to swim, a circumstance ordinarily on the plus side in any penguin's life.

"We could do something else."

"Like _wot_?" Why, why had he brought this up? Why hadn't he kept this as a simple birthday wish, the kind that you know at the bottom of your heart will never come true? Then again, nothing ventured, nothing gained. That saying was embroidered on the pillow sham that Uncle Nigel had posted to him from across the Big Pond as a Christmas present.

"What do you really, _**really**_ want for Boxing Day?" Kowalski's machine hummed louder.

Private had had enough. "A kiss." He crossed his flippers. Uncle Nigel would not let anything slow _him_ down getting what he wanted. "Do it, or, or not."

"We _could_ stop at that if you say so, soldier, but what _I_ wish for is more detailed."

"Oh. Skippa?"

Skipper halted his approach to the target. "Yeah?"

"Would you put on your Santa hat first?"

IOIOIOIOIO

The End.


End file.
